A football coach, of all people, has come up with a way to save college athletics. As his sport fueled the latest round of conference cannibalization, UCLA’s Chip Kelly offered a suggestion that many read as a solution.
“Notre Dame is an independent in football, but they’re in a conference for everything else. Why aren’t we all independent for football?” he said. “Take the 64 teams in Power Five and make that one division. Take the 64 teams in Group of Five, make that another division. We play for a championship, they play for a championship, and no one else gets affected.”
From their offices, August vacation homes and European team trips, college basketball coaches shouted: Amen!
Many have come to view endless football-driven conference realignment as a malignancy that is killing off healthy rivalries — perhaps even entire leagues — and apparently altering one’s ability to comprehend travel logistics. Faced with a prognosis that includes regular 2,000-mile road trips in a collection of malformed, bicoastal superconferences, basketball coaches are increasingly interested in an extreme treatment plan: amputating football.
Let that sport break away as its own thing, governed by the television overlords to which it is already beholden, and leave basketball and…
